In this installment of our “Expert Interviews” series on YouTube, I interview Shep Hyken.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert and the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession.Read more →

One of the most overlooked aspects of great customer experience is the self-confidence of those who work with customers.

Self-confidence is important because it is inextricably tied to competence.

When frontline service reps lack confidence in their positions, they often fumble about struggling to perform. This creates a further decrease in confidence, which results in a downward spiral that is inevitably felt by the customer.

We’ve all seen it happen.

The link between confidence and competence is not only in the mind of the service provider but also in the mind of the customer. Read more →

Who is being churned — your best customers or those who might make room for more valuable customers?

While understanding customer attrition is often complex, no matter what your business model, almost every organization can benefit from tracking and attempting to understand customer retention and churn.

First let’s begin with the definition of the customer retention rate. Read more →

In this installment of our “Expert Interviews” series on YouTube, I interview Jeff Toister.

Jeff is the author of The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service. He has also authored customer service training videos on Lynda.com including Customer Service Fundamentals and Leading a Customer-centric Culture.Read more →

Let’s start with a quiz. It’s a simple one. Just fill in the blank in this sentence: The customer is always ___.

If you’ve worked in customer service, one word will almost certainly come to mind to complete the phrase. It’s the phrase that has been drilled into our heads, for better or worse, since our rst exposure to customer service.

And let’s be real—none of us are particularly fond of it.

At a recent conference, I struck up a conversation with a front-line service rep. When I mentioned that I was writing a book on customer service, the first words out of his mouth were, “What do you think of the saying, ‘The customer is always right’”? Read more →

Employee empowerment can take many forms; however, at it’s most fundamental, it can be broken down into two types: actual and psychological.

By its nature, empowerment starts at the top. Empowerment must first be given by those who have the power to do so. This is actual empowerment, the granting of increased roles, responsibilities, and authority.

Then it must be embraced by those who have been given greater authority. This is psychological empowerment, how employees feel about using the powers they’ve been granted. Read more →

Consistency is one of the greatest challenges in customer service. Whether you are a solopreneur or a Fortune 500 company, consistency can be hard to get your arms around.

Consistency is hard because it takes effort and discipline, not only on the individual level but on the much trickier team level. For example, in the video below, I tell the story of one of my favorite restaurants that used to have its servers write personalized or creative notes on napkins and tickets.

This practice was a regular one for awhile, then it stopped. While the gesture was an ancillary touch (the absence of which was certainly not going to make me stop eating there), I certainly noticed when it didn’t happen. Read more →

Onboarding employees is an extremely important and often neglected practice.

All too often employers simply show new team members where the paper clips are and how to use the computer system, but they don’t show them the organization’s service standards or how to treat customers.

The first days on the job are often no different than the employee’s total experience, a lack of training lies at the heart of many challenges they face. Onboarding a new employee should represent a microcosm of everything you want from not only your relationships with your employees but also their relationships with your customers. Read more →

In this installment of our “Expert Interviews” series on YouTube, I interview Phil Gerbyshak.

Phil Gerbyshak teaches sales people and leaders to position themselves as an expert in their niche to up their influence, impact and income. He is one of the people who teaches social and truly walks the social talk.

In this interview, we chat about how salespeople must understand that social media is a service channel, who owns customer service in the organization, and service as a software CRM systems.Read more →

http://customersthatstick.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/cts_2017-04_when-sales-does-service-on-social-phil-gerbyshak_FB.jpg6301200Adam Toporekhttp://customersthatstick.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/horizontal-font-350-b.pngAdam Toporek2017-04-13 09:06:102017-04-13 09:06:10When Sales Does Service on Social with Phil Gerbyshak